Don't mean to rain on your parade (i know you were going to post something), but seriously, what a load of kak! Can't say i agree with a single award, total populist nonsense! Why don't they just call it the 'Top of the Popscars', or amalgamate it with the Teen Choice Awards?

Why doesn't anyone have STANDARDS anymore? The Oscars is turning into a Miss South Africa - style beauty pageant.

Thursday, 19 February 2009

After everything, confirming they are the second worst company on earth after Telkom (actually I think they are now the worst), SAA have threatened Parliament with claims that they cannot survive without a massive capital injection. The depth of their problems should provide Carl Niehaus with some comfort. The audacity! The hubris! The *&%I*&)(*&(*^(*&%$&^IRFYUK AAAAAAAAAAH.

Wednesday, 18 February 2009

Jesse Duarte is the worst spin doctor on earth. John Robbie cornered her so easily this morning over this Carl Niehaus story - she got kakked on by a short irritating Irishman while trying to defend someone she apparently doesn't like very much. What a muppet. She basically admitted that the ANC, in failing to make public the fact that it had explicit knowledge of Niehaus's corruption while at GEDA, supports the idea that being corrupt is OK as long as the papers never find out. You'll still find a job in the ANC, even if you are corrupt and the the ANC knows you're corrupt - just don't tell anyone else. She didn't even half deny Robbie assertion to that effect. It was all um, errr, I'm not a lawyer but we believe... aaah. And then she said the ANC is committed to uncovering and exposing corruption within its ranks. Useless.

Tuesday, 17 February 2009

This website is fokken funny; giving advice to those girls that date the now-not-so-rich NYC bankers.

And quite a cool 4AD sampler for free download......shit, doesn't want to embed, so here's the link

4AD also just released the Dark Was The Night compilation this week. It can't really live up to the hype, but should be pretty good if you're in a country that can get it. I know Phil's been waiting for the deep meaningful tunes.

Twice in two months. TWICE IN TWO MONTHS! At the same airport! Same offence! Ok this time the drugs were different. 2kg coke instead of 50kg dope. An SAA crew member phoned 702 this morning saying that this sort of thing has been going on for a while, and not just to London. After the first incident SAA promised, *promised* to improve security checks for SAA crew leaving ORT (apparently SAA does this on its own - ACSA's normal procedures have never been applicable). This guy says precisely nothing has changed, and that he is pulling himself off the London flights to avoid being arrested (they tend to lock up the entire crew over there).

SAA has received taxpayer money every single year since they lost a squidgillion betting against the rand. This year's budget gave them another R1.6 billion. When will SAA return to profitability? I'm not even asking overall - just operating! How hard can it be? Yes fuel is expensive and demand has collapsed, but the reverse was true 5 years ago and they were still making losses then. Africa is the least competitive, most profitably airspace in the world. Risks are fairly high but margins are much higher. They should be creaming it, because as rubbish as they are, only Kenya Airways sort of touches sides with their coverage and service.

SAA's long-standing CEO is some kinda megalomaniac corporate gangster who seemingly had to report to no-one but Crazy Alec Erwin. But he has now been suspended by the SAA Board pending the outcome of an internal investigation into his "gross mismanagement". I forget who the new Minister of Public Enterprises is, but praise be to that person for forcing some accountability of Don Khaya.

The Springboks and Proteas don't fly SAA. Government officials shouldn't, because the Public Finance Management Act requires that the cheapest be used. But some okes have some weird patriotism thing going where they feel they have to fudge their requirements to make the SAA quote the right one for them. They just have to spend more taxpayer money than they need.

I hope the new finance minister stops giving them money. I hope they are allowed to go pop, Lehman-style. We don't need a flag carrier. Especially not if it regularly embarrasses the country like it did yesterday, and last month, and all those other times before.

Saturday, 14 February 2009

The Australian bush fires are crazy, and that people died is really awful, but the way the commercial television stations here have hammed the whole thing up into some international catastrophe, you'd think it was more important than a fucking war or something. Really, it makes me want to be sick all over my Wallaby jumper - Luke Watson style. Some Australian troops killed five children in a gunfire exchange with the Taliban this last week, but we'd all rather not talk about that WHEN SOME TRUE BLUE FAIR DUNKUM AUSSIES HAVE SAVED A DEHYDRATED KOALA!! Chill the fuck out, really, the fires suck, but the fact that you're living in a state with a really sound social safety net should ease the pain. Oh, and i don't own a Wallaby jumper - what do you take me for??

I saw The Wrestler last night, and goddamn! its sad, but its also excellent. It makes a big, runny, lamb vindaloo pooh all over Slumdog Millionaire, which i thought was a big pile of arse. That Darren Aronofsky guy is a genius. He made me cry.

I was also thinking the other day how Asako Kishi is really the only judge on Iron Chef with standards. That snivelling Shinichiro Kurimoto always panders to the Iron Chefs, and Mayuko Takata just giggles and loves anything the chefs put into her mouth (ANYTHING!).

Thanks to the M&G the whole country now knows the extent of Carl's problems/sins/crimes. Carl claims he will likely lose his job now that these things are in the public domain. He has not denied them (although continues to spin some details), and has tendered his resignation at Luthuli House, even though he claims the ANC has known for three years the full extent of his financial difficulty (read fraud, corruption, bad debt, Brett Kebble, you name it).

If the ANC have known for that long, and would only consider firing him if details became public, why hire him so close to the most important election in the country's history? What are the chances of keeping so many skeletons inside one closet for so long? The story was bound to break at some stage, and appointing him spokesperson would only have increased the media's interest in doing so.

He must have consulted ANC leaders over the M&G's request for an interview, and what to say if one were granted, well before these stories were written. They must have told Carl to do it. [They also presumably must have indicated what would be the consequences of doing it, making all Carl's fuss about his handing in his resignation odd. He must have known before talking to M&G whether or not the ANC was going to kick his ass out.] So it isn't surprising that the tone of his quotes in the M&G articles appear heavily scripted. As were his comments on the two radio interviews he did this morning. Poor me, I'm not so bad I just made mistakes, I didn't know how to say no to my second wife, I thought you had to pay for love to keep it, but rest assured I will fall on my sword in the name of my love for the ANC and South Africa. Because I am such an honourable guy. What kak. He's fallen on his sword or been kicked out of: the Presidency, Delloitte, and the Gauteng Economic Development Agency. If you love the ANC and South Africa so much why are you running around constantly trying to wreck it in the name of big houses and shoes for your wife? Another one who didn't fight the struggle to be poor, it seems.

I really can't think of a logical set of reasons why this might have been something the ANC has planned and arranged, unless someone on the new NEC really fuckin hates Carl. I can't see how this helps the ANC's election bid. Their President still isn't clear of corruption charges; now their chief spokesperson is blubbing on national radio about his own corruption. And the other spokesperson, Jesse I don't need to obey traffic laws at all if I'm Gauteng Safety and Securiy MEC Duarte, apparently hates him. Will be interesting to see what one spokesperson has to say about the other - no doubt later today!

Thursday, 12 February 2009

Is a writer. She wrote a book about her childhood and early adult years a short while ago, but i wont post that on the blog, because you should buy it rather (click the pic!). I don't feature, in case you're wondering. In fact, I've only met her once.

Anyway, the point of this post is to tell you that you can read her new little story on McSweeney's here. She also wrote a naughty sestina a while back for McSweeney's, and you can read that here. For Free!

I live in town that became an oven today. 46 degrees celcius.. hottest it's ever been in recorded history.......trees lost their leaves, black smoke billowed over the houses, people stayed indoors and stared out of their windows, which if they looked anything like mine, had foils over them.

We foiled our windows to keep the heat out as much we could. My housemates and I ventured out, despite warnings not to leave our houses by our State premier, to go and get vidoes and iced coffees - a girl has her addictions..;-) not going to stop for some weirdass hottest day in history nonsense, now is it?!

So we sat in our darkened house under fans with iced ginger water, spray bottles and took turns with cold showers. All of us felt nauseos at some point in the day and reminded each other to just keep on sipping from those water bottles.

And then I had to go to a theatre and perform. Thank #$%#$% we have air conditioning at La Mama. After the "don't leave for anything, don't go on public tranport, don't just don't" messages today in the media, I was suprised to see we still had an audience rock up. I think they were pleasantly suprised to walk into a balmy 25 degrees, which felt quite cool after the day we had.

What is going on in the world that we have these weird ass fire raging crazy days down here in down under whilst up there in the land of the north there are blizzards going on?

Can anyone tell me if this has something to do with the tilt of the earth? The ozone hole? The global warming effect? Someone..must know something..?! Come on.........